Getting the biggest nutritional bang for our climate buck (especially for that $4 Latte)

There are recent headlines about Starbuck's 2020 initiative to reduce their carbon footprint and part of that strategy is offering plant based alternative drinks vs the traditional dairy based ingredients.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/can-starbucks-save-the-planet-by-cutting-dairy-activists-and-investors-respond-2020-01-21

No matter what you order at starbucks, the impact is probably minimal compared to the impact of simply how you get there.

Given that consuming #beef in the U.S. accounts for less than .5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it's no doubt eating a salad in a restaurant or a veggie sub is less climate friendly than a steak at home. https://t.co/dVKTRx83k1

— Matt Bogard (@AgEconomist) January 26, 2020

Maybe you can get past that argument if you are combining trips.

But combining trips makes for a good analogy when it comes to the carbon footprint of our food.

How do we know we are getting the most nutritional bang for our climate buck. In a 2010 Food and Nutrition Research article, authors introduce what they are calling a Nutrient Density to Climate Impact (NDCI) index that takes this into account. According to their work:

"the NDCI index was 0 for carbonated water, soft drink, and beer and below 0.1 for red wine and oat drink. The NDCI index was similar for orange juice (0.28) and soy drink (0.25). Due to a very high-nutrient density, the NDCI index for milk was substantially higher (0.54) than for the other beverages. Future discussion on how changes in food consumption patterns might help avert climate change need to take both GHG emission and nutrient density of foods and beverages into account."

Just as combining trips and carpooling might be effective ways to reduce your carbon footprint getting the most out of every mile driven and gallon of gas used, we should be trying to get the most out of every bite we take and ounce we drink. Starbucks could help us do this by supporting our dairy farmers and emphasizing the very high NDCI for milk! After all, it does a body good.

HT: I found out about the NCDI via this related post by Michelle Payn https://causematters.com/advocacy/starbucks-environment-farmer/

References:

Smedman A, Lindmark-Månsson H, Drewnowski A, Edman AK. Nutrient density of beverages in relation to climate impact. Food Nutr Res. 2010;54:10.3402/fnr.v54i0.5170. Published 2010 Aug 23. doi:10.3402/fnr.v54i0.5170

From the tweet stream February 22, 2018

From my economic sense blog post - The 'free-from' Nash equilibrium food marketing strategy.

A meta analysis summarizing 21 years of research related to GMO corn. Results - healthier and better yielding. 

"Results provided strong evidence that GE maize performed better than its near isogenic line: grain yield was 5.6 to 24.5% higher with lower concentrations of mycotoxins (−28.8%), fumonisin (−30.6%) and thricotecens (−36.5%)....The results support the cultivation of GE maize, mainly due to enhanced grain quality and reduction of human exposure to mycotoxins."

Beyond proof of concept - blockchain

“Before the blockchain test, it took Walmart six days, 18 hours and 26 minutes to trace the mangoes back to their original source, he said. Blockchain not only cut that time down to an unbelievable 2.2 seconds” - from https://progressivegrocer.com/grocers-embrace-blockchain-new-era-transparency 

Corn may soon be fixing its own nitrogen:

"Pivot Bio is on a mission to replace all nitrogen fertilizer with microbes that adhere to the crop’s root system and spoon-feed the crop each day. These microbes mature as the crop grows, matching the supply of nitrogen to the need of each plant."  - https://medium.com/@ktemme/the-crop-microbiome-holds-the-future-of-fertilizer-68ce67d07ad 

Facial recognition for managing cattle.

If you think that is cool, check out  Image-based ex-vivo drug screening for patients.

Some research on gene drives.

Follow me at @AgEconomist 

Whole Eggs, CRISPR, and GMOs

Whole Eggs Better than Whites for Muscle Growth - Feedstuffs -A recent study that seems to find when it comes to eggs consuming protein 'in its natural matrix' gives better post workout muscle growth vs. eating an equivalent level of protein from egg whites alone:

Avoiding GMOs isn’t just anti-science. It’s immoral. - Washington Post

Some good points made here:

"If you’re an academic, you can tell yourself that, sooner or later, the science will prevail. If you’re from the world of commerce, you justify your silence (or complicity) by saying that you aren’t in business to argue with customers. If you’re a regulatory bureaucrat, you worry that you will be drawn and quartered for any mistake, whereas no one is ever held accountable for the miracle that never makes it to the marketplace."

Some Farmers Still Don't Trust CRISPR, Thanks to GMOs​ - Motherboard

“I have a hard time, ethically, with the patenting of life,” he says, “and how that impacts farmer innovation and their ability to advance.”… “I think there’s a lot of controversy over whether farmers are driving for these technologies or whether these technologies are manipulating farmers,” he says. “I think you’ll get answers on both sides of that issue.” Wright agrees. “I definitely think that is a concern,” he says. “I don't think farmers are driving those decisions at all. I think the large companies that produce these technologies are driving those technologies hard.”

But are critics equally concerned with patenting of life related to so called 'non-gmo' tech, like mutagenesis? I think the answer is either NO or if they are then the media/publishers are not interested in hearing those criticisms.

“I just don’t see it as the panacea that many people in the technology industry seem to think it is,” he says. Willey stresses that the impacts agriculture has on the natural resource base are massive and no single technology is going to solve that. “It’s not about coming up with one or two CRISPR products,” he says, “it’s about looking at the whole approach to the ecology around agriculture"

That seems very agreeable. It seems like gene editing still targets one or a few genes, and there is a lot of additional genetic variation to be exploited by other genomic approaches that involve data science and discovery (like molecular/marker assisted breathing). Again its the convergence of big data and genomics.

Gluten Free Bread via CRISPR

CRISPR technology might make gluten free wheat a reality:  

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2148596-genetically-modified-wheat-used-to-make-coeliac-friendly-bread/ 


For people with Coeliac or severe gluten intolerance this could be very exciting. However, there are a number of people choosing a gluten free diet for sociopolitical reasons that probably will continue to look for the 'gluten free' label bundled with non-GMO certification (which would most likely rule out CRISPR based advances like this). We have seen food companies abandon promising technologies (i.e. rBST in milk, finely textured beef) because of issues related to consumer acceptance/perceptions. Will they be willing to invest in commercialization of CRISPR based gluten free food given this history and the trend toward 'free-from' labeling?  Will there be enough demand from current gluten free consumers that are otherwise agnostic to these fads and trends? Can we learn anything from other new consumer enhanced products like non-browing apples, the Simplot Innate potato or the Impossible Burger?

Simulating Impacts of Food Taxes and Subsidies

 Just last week I posted about food subsidies. I asked:

"Could you make the argument that simply shifting money toward programs related to fruits and vegetables would have a large enough impact on price to influence consumption? How much money would that take and what would the effect size be?"

This video discusses a PLOS medicine study that finds positive health benefits related to subsidies for fruits and vegetables and the referenced study (from a 'headline' reading) indicates a 10% subsidy could have a meaningful impact on health:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/video/tunedin/making-fruits-and-veggies-cheaper-could-save-a-lot-of-american-lives/vi-BBCQCE0

The video makes no direct reference to a study. However based on this reading I think the following are the studies mentioned in the video, the first being the primary reference:

Reducing US cardiovascular disease burden and disparities through national and targeted dietary policies: A modelling study. PLOS Medicine. June 6, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002311

Taxes and Subsidies for Improving Diet and Population Health in Australia: A Cost-Effectiveness Modelling Study. PLOS Medicine. February 14, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002232

Both papers are simulations based on assumptions related to elasticities and projected health outcomes (vs. empirical findings). One thing advocated is to create a revenue neutral policy that taxes soda and subsidizes fruits and vegetables. I'm skeptical, but if I want to give any credit I could say cynically that in this way maybe a soda tax could be useful even if it fails to have any meaningful impact on consumption or health.

See also: 

Are Soda Taxes Effective?
Four Big Questions about Farm Subsidies

Tuesday Assorted Links: Food, Health, and Nutrition

Eggs can significantly increase growth in young children

Association Between Indulgent Descriptions and Vegetable Consumption: Twisted Carrots and Dynamite Beets